Shekhinah Mountainwater Memorial

Source: Frey. He says “One year ago, my mother on into…well, I am not really sure where…she was sure she would return…let’s hope she was right.  In any case, she will be remembered for her wild, poetic, rebellious and savvy self  this time around”.

Moonspell Studies
Demeday, Laurel Moon,
Day 1, Pisces, in the year or our Lady, 10,005
Cycle 1: Seizing the Time

Reclaiming time and calendar keeping has been quite an adventure for me. I have found myself doing this on two tracks; the Solar and the Lunar. On the Solar track I have discovered the mythic content of the eight solar holidays, the annual seasons, and their connection to women’s rites of passage. The Lunar track is similar, yet moves more quickly as it progresses from mooncycle to mooncycle around the year. The solar cycle works on longer arcs and we mark less seldom power points or holy days around its rim. The Lunar cycle is with us more day-to-day and so is entwined in our daily lives. Both can be understood as Maiden/Mother/Crone cycles, as can Morning/Noon/Night. All the cycles, daily, monthly, and annual have been layered with meaning in every culture, associated with deities, their names and their stories, and associated flora and fauna.

In 45 B.C. the lunar calendar was outlawed by Julius Ceasar. In the 5th century A.D. the concept of cyclic process was declared heretical by the Council of Constantinople. The current solar/civil calendar was instituted by Pople Gregory X111 in 1582 A.D. Obviously earlier peoples had no problem with cyclical time, and the universal circling of all things. With the advent of patriarchy, came the necessity to create finite time in order to keep people slaving and believing their allotment was running out, with heaven at the end of it if they were good slaves, hell if they were not. New conquests are often accompanied by new calendars and interpretations of time.

“Seize the time” is a phrase we can nowtake more literally than ever. Nancy Passmore spoke of it so elequently when she first came out with her Lunar Calendar, Dedicated to the Goddess in Her Many Guises. Merlin Stone gave us the astonishing research she had done, discovering that time has been measured for thousands more years than our own calendars tell us. Some of us now date our writings accordingly, so for us this is the year 10,005!

When Passmore’s first lunar calendars came out I was working on creating my own. She and I and Stone had apparently stumbled across these issues around the same time. I found out about it when I read Robert Graves’ material on the Celtic Tree Calendars in his book The White Goddess. I was making giant timewheels for my altars and sharing them with sisters. These were layered in concentric circles, with a pin at their center so they could all spin. I placed a marker at their edge to show where “now”was. There was a solar wheel in the middle with eight pie-wedges showing the solar holy days. Then there was a wheel showing the patriarchal months…then one showing the zodiac, then one showing the lunar months or moons, and finally a largest rim wheel with lines
for the 365-6 days. (A small version of this calendar wheel is shown in the Thread, Cycle #8, The Goddess Year.)

I was looking for photos or drawings of the thirteen trees as outlined by Robert Graves, so I could add these in to my lunar wheel. Since some of them are not indigenous to my area, I found this challenging. Later I decided to put some local trees in my own lunar calendar.

When I first read about the tree calendars I was surprised. I had never thought to connect time with trees…or the measurement of time. Now it seems so obvious to me…duh! The trees shift with the seasons…they shed leaves or grow leaves or make fruit or pods or seeds… all is exquisitely timed with the dance of earth and sky. Different trees have different cycles at different times of year. Thus a lunar month could be named for the Apple Tree when she flowers in the spring…. or the Oak Tree when she is in her fullest leafing in summer. I just love saying Apple Moon, or Oak Moon, or Hazel Moon when I am dealing with dates and records. Changing some to local trees has helped me to feel more connected in my own environment too. Tie that in with following the moon’s path in the sky day to day, knowing what phase she is in, what astrological sign she is in, and time becomes a thing of beauty and fulfillment. Tie all that in with my womanly cycles and energies and time becomes a thing of mystery and magic. Tie all that in with language and letters – that’s right- the tree calendars were not only nature signs…. they were alphabets! – and time becomes even more magical! On top of all that the letters are oghams or runes, and can be used for divination. And it’s all tied in with the moon.

What an amazing transformation all this brings to one’s sense of time’s passing. And to know that we go back in herstory 10,000 years and not 2,000! That our roots in womantime are old, old, old. Here are the tree names in English and Gaelic, with their alphabet letters as explicated by Robert Graves in The White Goddess. These are the tree moons in my current calendar, with the dates for 2,005/10,005 :

1. Beth Birch
2. Luis Rowan
3. Nion Ash
4. Fearn Alder
5. Saille Willow
6. Uath Hawthorne
7. Duir Oak
8. Tinne Holly
9. Coll Hazel
10. Muin Vine
11. Gort Ivy
12. Ngetal Reed
13. Ruis Elder

Be sure to save this list for filling out your wheels:
1. Birch Jan. 5 – Feb 8
2. Laurel Feb 9 – Mar 10
3. Ash Mar 11 – April 8
4. Alder Apr 9 – May 8<br
5. Apple May 9- June 6
6. Willow June 7 – July 6
7. Oak July 7 – Aug 4
8. Holly Aug 5 – Sep 3
9. Hazel Sep 4 – Oct 3
10. Sweetgum (Liquid Amber) Oct 4 – Nov 1
11. Madrone Nov 2 – Dec 1
12. Cypress Dec 2 – Dec 30
13. Redwood (No Redwood Moon this year; it is a 12 – Moon year)

Yes both these calendars have thirteen trees to cover the passing of thirteen moon cycles in a year. However, not every year has thirteen moons. Surprise! I remember when we were reclaiming the number 13 along with so many other witchy things that come with Goddess awakening. We felt we were soo cool and hip to be acknowledging the passing of 13 moons instead of the patriarchal twelve months. Well I found out some interesting details when I started actually making my own moon
calendars.

Even Robert Graves has it wrong in White Goddess. He claims that the old calendars always had thirteen moons of four weeks apiece and then there was the "extra day" which was considered the Birth of the Divine Child, and it’s own month at Winter Solstice. Turns out these calculations don’t always match up with the actual dance of sun and moon in the sky. (Jose Arguelles is another mooncalendar enthusiast who was going by these incorrect calculations, last I heard.)

I wrote to a friend of mine, Grey Cat, a witch in Tennessee who had been making her own moon calendar for a while and sending it out to friends. It was built with lines and squares like regular calendars, but each page began and ended with the beginning and end of a lunar cycle.

I told Grey Cat that something confusing had happened to me when I tried to make my own calendar. I was working with Passmore’s calendar which always shows thirteen moons for each year. I discovered that the dates of the last  moon of one year were the same dates as the first moon of the following year. This meant that one moon was being repeated, so that there were actually only twelve moons in that former year. When I’d written to Passmore about it she sent me a pile of literature but none of it answered my question.

Grey Cat went to her local planetarium and spoke to an astronomy professor! She found out that in
actual fact there are a little over twelve moons for two years and a little under thirteen moons every third year. She said the way to tell if a year has twelve or thirteen moons is to see how close Winter
Solstice is to the nearest full moon. If they are five or less days apart, that is a thirteen-moon year.

I still find myself wondering when I fill out my new wheels each year, whether we are in a twelve or thirteen moon year. Wemoon is also rather confusing on this subject. They too always have thirteen moons in their calendars, though sometimes they are not whole moon cycles. I guess that is how they are compensating for the fact that there are embarassingly, not actually always 13 whole moons every year. LOL! If you look at the current Wemoon for 2,005, you will see that it has two Winter Solstices… hm. That was my clue this year that we are actually in a twelve moon – with a little over- year. So, in a twelve moon year we do not include the Redwood or Elder moon.

The same applies to the thirty day-spokes in your moonwheel. There are not always thirty days in a lunar cycle…sometimes, I have found, thereare 29. In the ten years I have been using this calendar, lunations have always been either 29 or 30 days a piece.

However, if you are working from more conventional calendars, you may discover that some of your moon cycles have only 28 days. The reason mine never have less than 29 is because I am counting my moons starting with the very first crescent as day One, and ending with the last part of the dark
moon as day Twenty-nine or Thirty. Most calendars count the last day of Dark Moon as the first day of the lunar cycle, calling it the New Moon. I feel this moon belongs to the Crone and should be
considered the end, not the beginning of the lunar cycle. To me Newness means Maiden, and Maiden is the Crescent, while Darkmoon means Crone.

By leaving the Crone out of our lunar symbolism, we are effectively eradicating the Crone archetype from our psyches. So when I fill out my moonwheels I consider the cycle to begin with the first Crescent as New or Maiden Moon, and to end with the final dark moon. This is why my moonwheels
have never shown 28 days.

Of course you can name your moons and count them any way you like Starhawk’s group has nice names for their moons. Native American calendars have lovely names too. The Jewish calendar is Lunar and has Hebrew names. Many cultures still calculate their time by the moon and use lunar calendars. The Moonwheels come blank, so this does give you some flexibility. However, for the sake of getting started with your wheels, I suggest you follow along with my methods for now. Once you
have the hang of it you can make changes as you wish…

When a given moon has less than thirty days, I simply blank out the extra spoke in my wheel, or turn it into a decoration. Just as you would pass by the thirteenth moon in a twelve moon year, you can pass by that thirtieth dayspoke in your moonwheel when the cycle has only 29 days.

When we go into chat together I will walk you through, step by step, the filling out of your first moonwheel. We can repeat this with other moonwheels as well, if needed. Below are some questions I would like you all to answer by message-email. I would also like you to freely discuss the subjects I have brought up here, and of course I encourage dialogue among us all. I love questions too, so please ask freely. We all can participate in questions, answers, discussion, etc.

There is no set schedule for answering these questions. You may find some answers come right away, and some come to you as we proceed along in our moon together. Please respond as it flows:

What is time?

How is time created?

Is time an illusion?

Does the past still exist?

Does the future exist yet?

Did you know that the earliest calendars were menstrual? That ancient peoples measured time by bleeding women and trees?That a month was a moon cycle and not a slice of earth’s path around the sun?
How do you feel about time? Is there enough time?

Does time end?

Does time go on forever?

Is time linear?

Compare the experience of filling in a traditional calendar with boxes, lines and squares to that of filling in your moonwheels. How do you feel about the moon? Do you connect with her?

See the moon as "her?&quot. Do you pray to her or do magic with her energy?

In what phase of the moon does or did your moonblood come?

Are you aware of any effects of moon energy on your own energy?
Have you ever "drawn down" the moon? Taken a moonbath?

In patriarchy solar/lunar is usually considered as a gender-based duality of male/female, active/receptive, light/dark, good/evil, dominant/submissive.Does this resonate for you? In my Goddess-centered cosmology I have reckoned the Sun, Earth and Moon as a Crone/Mother/Maiden
triad. (Scientific theory backs this Grandmother/Mother/Daughter image up, since it has said that the moon came outof the earth and the earth came out of the sun!) How does this triadic female symbolism resonate for you

**********************************************************************
Magic is afoot, a heart and a hand
And Goddess is alive in the land!
Shekhinah Mountainwater, Radical Muse, Faery Bard, Priestess of Aphrodite, a foremother of the Womanspirit Movement, Author of Ariadne’s Thread.

It is typical in a patriarchal society that women are isolated from one another and learn to put their trust in men first. Sisters are set against sisters, as the priveleges and perks of the system are in the control of those "on top," creating a scarcity of love, recognition, attention, support.

Some women are in easier positions than others, depending upon the men they are connected to, and sometimes women of privilege feel they are already liberated, and wonder what all the fuss is about. Usually they don’t become feminists unless they experience oppression directly and become awakened to the nature of the system…

The lack of continuity and trust between sisters is an obvious sign that something is amiss. But it’s not our fault that we were born into an arrangement designed to keep us apart. True, lots of sisters who have no politics and no feminism do get together anyway… for "innocent" activities like coffee clatches or the yaya sisterhood. In older times it was quilting parties and sewing bees.

Interestingly, such gatherings have become radicalized over time, as women come up against things like rape, abuse, lower salaries, fewer job options, and so on. Some women wake up as they age, and discover what happens to older women.

In any case it’s understandable that we have little trust for sisters. In an enslaving society, sisters can take on what feminists call "the traits of victimization"… or "horizontal oppression," where we turn against one another, compete, are jealous, backbiting, gossiping, scapegoating, excluding, and so on.

All of these behaviours, usually with little awareness of the larger pattern that put us there, are part of the design to keep us apart and disempowered.

Trust is not automatic in the best of circumstances. This is something that must be built and earned. I pray that sisters will trust me, but I know that it takes time and the repetition of deeds that show I walk my talk, mean what I say, and am sincere in my advocating sisterhood. I have had sisters turn away from me many many times in my life, so I too need time to build trust. "By their fruits ye shall know them" is a good concept. :0)

I hope we can keep dialoguing about these things and that others in the circle will put their thoughts and feelings in too…

Blessings,
Shekhinah 

From Moonspell Library

I am familiar with the Eastern concept that all we experience in this plane is illusion… a dream in the night of Brahma… the exhortation to transcend the ego… the encouragement to get off the wheel of birth, life, and death  that must always bring suffering because it is built on the pleasure/pain duality and "you can’t have one without the o-o-ther… (music in the background here :0) )…

One time I was at a Satsang listening to a famous guru explain the familiar dictum that all is an illusion, couched in the implication that then one must let the dream go, and return to sublime Nothingness. A woman sitting near me in the audience muttered under so that only those nearby could hear her "Well if it’s all a dream, we might as well have a good one." Right on sista!

The western mysteries and pagan beliefs look at it differently, I believe.

We see the Wheel as beautiful and
miraculous, birthed from the magic and genius of our Divine Mother… a
sacred Dance that we can engage in with love, and learn to do well,
with pleasure instead of pain… to celebrate… to co-create.

To us
the Self is the I Am, our sense of being who we are… the essential meaning of the word "ego," an individual divine presence of body, mind, spirit, energy, and heart… to be loved and cherished. The more loved
and valued we are, the less "egotistical" in the negative sense this
word has come to mean…I think there is some confusion about the
meaning and use of the word "ego." It simply means "I Am" but has come
to mean arrogance, and separation.

To end the confusion, I have come up with the terms "true ego" and
"false ego"… the first being the authentic loved, loving and self
loving Self who flowers to fulfill Her awesome creative potential….
and the second being the arrogant one who has become desensitized to
their connection with all Beings and Things in the universe…

Women especially I think have been so beaten down in patriarchy, that if anything we need to build up our sense of Self…. to learn to be good
to us…to nurture us and heal… to find ways to blossom and manifest
our dreams.

For us the Eastern teachings may not be as helpful, as they may be for people in power-over positions in society who may have a false ego
running them.

Getting off the Wheel for a time can be a good thing too… I mean if you’ve done mostly suffering and agony and distress and disaster on the Wheel and haven’t been able to figure out a way to prevent that yet… well
taking a break from it all makes perfect sense. Maybe the Buddhists and
Hindus have given us a part of our spiritual training wheels so to
speak… the ultimate Timeout.

But how long does one want to hang in nothingness? Some more than
others, no doubt, but I would think that after a while one would grow
bored, no? Maybe after a few eons…? I would think at some point one
would want to engage in some dream or other… and it seems to me, if
we’re evolving, chances are each time we engage we know a little more
about what to do and what to avoid to help make it a wondrous and
fabulous journey…

The wheel of fate comes ’round once more
  Again we join the dance
  This time we know the steps by heart
  No more a prey to chance…

I do agree that there is far too much separation and isolation in our fragmented ways of living in these times… that the old tribal ways
have much to offer in teaching us how to live in connection with all
the five worlds of human, plant, stone, animal, and faery… witches
surely have always known these things. How else could we do magic if we
didn’t feel our interwovenness with all that is…?

So I think transcending the Wheel has a place and a purpose in the
scheme of things or non-things as the case may be. But I am also
concerned that it tends to make the people complacent in times of
political oppression in society. I mean, well, if it’s all an illusion anyway, there’s not much point
in protesting or trying to do anything to change it, or resisting it. Better to just go away somewhere and withdraw from it all and meditate oneself into
neutral. Sure, that works, here we go, off the wheel now. This is why political feminists have called spiritual feminists "bliss bunnies" and
accused us of escapism and copping out.

Sometimes they are right I think, ’cause I remember in my youthful
days when I embraced these Eastern teachings. I got that it was best
to leave the world and its troubles behind and that it was useless to
try and fix it because the suffering and injustices are part of the
nature of the beast; there’s no way out except off.

It wasn’t until I awakened to the Goddess and found myself in ecstatic
circles of poetic bliss with my children, and got radicalized by the
world’s resistance to such a woman and her family and got passionately
involved in what we were doing that my beliefs about these things
got radicalized.

So, while taking breaks from the great Learning Curve of life definitely has its merits… there’s much to be said for coming back and doing it magnificently… :0)

"You wanna speak your mind
Get a little respect
You’re up on a pedestal,
Queen of the set
You’re queen of the set
You get shot down
They say you should be spreadin
The power around!

So you try to be equal
Give some power away
You don’t exist
And
You
Got
Nuthin
To
Say".

From "Priestess Wrap"
by Shekhinah Mountainwater
All rights reserved

Big hugs, many blessings!
Shekhinah

Moonspells November 1 2004

From Moonspell Library

The wheel of fate comes ’round once more
Again we join the dance
This time we know the steps by heart
No more a prey to chance..

From Moonspell Library

I swim with the sea flowers in my hair
All the Silkies love me here
Now my eyes are turning above
And my heart is tuned to an earthly love

My mother takes me by the hand
To where the waters meet the land
"Go my child, do not fear,
"And know the sea is ever near.

"And if there ever comes a time
"When you lover speaks to you unkind
"Turn your back to the land, your face to the wind
"I’ll be waiting here with your old sealskin.

Chorus:
"When you go you will leave your skin behind
"Taking only hand and heart and mind
"Naked you’ll stand upon the shore
"To see your own land never more…"

And how will it be when you come for me?
Will I turn and fly back to Sul Skerie?
Will I run to hide in my old sealskin?
Or stay to love Earthkin?

No, I’ll not run when you find me here
I’ll stand proud, and the wind will take my fear
And I’ll walk the land til I come to fly
And be one with the earth, the sea, and sky…

Chorus:
When I go I will leave my skin behind
Taking only hand and heart and mind
Naked I’ll stand upon the shore
To see my own lands ever more…

by Shekhinah Mountainwater
(c)1965
All rights reserved

Notes:
I composed this song in the early days of my Goddess awakening, when my
children were still dancing to my music. We loved acting out this tale
with wavelike movements, deep-sea chords and rocking rhythms. I had
long known of the Silkies, having sung the traditional Scottish ballad
of The Great Silkie since the early 1950s. This ballad was later
popularized by Joan Baez during folkmusic’s heyday in the late 50s and
the 60s. Yet few in our country seemed to be aware of the legends of
the magical seal people until the film Secret of Roan Innish came out
several years ago. What joy to experience this film and its
unforgettable rendition of the beautiful wild Silkie woman shedding her
skin.

Soon after the film’s release, my son Frey Faust, now a
professional dancer worldwide, came home to dance to the Song of the
Silkie Woman, along with his then partner Andreia Zwicca. They wore
brown fuzzy leotards that fit them like skins and moved in undulant
leaps and dives that took the viewers’ breath away. It dawned on me
that the Silkie woman is a perfect expression of the Dark Maiden
archetype. As a Dark Maiden woman it has been a great healing to sing
this piece. Since this realization I have woven it into women’s ritual
circles, inviting sisters to consider the option the seal woman chose:
to firmly and quietly walk away from abuse. 
(In the original Scottish legend I retell above, the parent who guides
the Silkie woman is her father. In my own version told in the song
below, I choose to have it be her mother, which feels more in keeping
with my woman-centered approach to this myth.)

From Moonspell Library

The Dark
Maiden’s season is fall, when shadows lengthen towards winter. She
wraps Her purple cloak around Her and descends into the cave of the
Mother. She is Persephone, Morgan La Fay, the Sorceress, Lady of the
Lake, the Mermaid, the Silkie Woman, the waning crescent of the moon.
Menopause is the woman’s mystery passage connected to the Dark Maiden,
a time when we shed our mother-skins and begin our croning journey.
 
Opposite Her on the Wheel of the Year is spring, time of Ascent,
Rebirth, and the Bright Maiden. The Bright Maiden dances into the arms
of Mother Summer, the Dark Maiden goes alone to meet the Winter Crone.
The Bright Maiden is the waxing crescent, strong, physical, assertive,
focused, solar, courageous, active, willful, fast-moving, powerful,
external, playful, left brain, smart, practical. She is Diana, Artemis,
Xena, Durga, Oya, Warrior Womon, Amazon. The Dark Maiden is tender,
compassionate, sensitive, magical, receptive, psychic, contemplative,
right brain, intuitive, artistic, flowing, muse-ical, lunar, internal,
mystical, dreamy, poetic.

All womyn have both of these
archetypes affecting our psyches, as well as others of the Mother and
Crone aspects of the Goddess. Yet each of us is unique and will express
the traits of one or some archetypes more than others. Some women are
primarily Bright Maidens, and some Dark. Some are combinations of both.
This is not to imply that the archetypes are psychological alone. I
agree with R.J. Stewart and Luisah Teish on this; that they are Beings
who reside on the inner planes, influencing us and manifesting through
body, mind and spirit, or through the physical, emotional, mental,
energetic and spiritual aspects of ourselves and our multiverse.

Because we are acclimated to the dominant patriarchal culture, we have
been taught to mold our Dark and Bright Maiden selves in its
masculine/feminine frame. We urgently need to befriend these archetypes
in their original woman-identified forms.

In the patriarchal
paradigm Bright Maiden qualities fall under the category of "masculine"
and Dark Maiden qualities under the category of "feminine." By
extension into the gay community’s paradigm, Bright Maiden becomes
"butch" and Dark Maiden "femme." Butch/femme mirrors the dominator
culture’s "masculine/feminine," delegating roles and qualities to each.
Because of this socialization, women who express Bright Maiden
qualities are expected to be "masculine," and are expected to dress and
act like men of the dominant cuture. Women who express Dark Maiden
qualities are expected to dress and act like women of the dominant
culture, and be submissive to their "masters." As a result, the powers
of both Maidens become afflicted. (See Maiden cycle in my book
Ariadne’s Thread.) Strength becomes competition and conquest, magic
becomes manipulation. A class system results with the usual power
dynamics; the dominators and the dominated.

Over the years I
have become aware of some negative attitudes towards anyone who
expresses qualities we have come to know as "feminine" in our culture.
Despite frequent protestations that "butch/femme" is a mirror of
masculine/feminine models of hetero-sexual patriarchy, that it should
be discarded as "old hat" or "not P.C." or "uncool…" despite all this
seemingly enlightened awareness, I still hear people being labelled
"femme" and being put down for it. I myself have been treated
disrespectfully, rejected, ignored, exploited and victimized for what
others perceive as my "feminine" qualities. This has happened to me in
both gay and straight communities, so it seems nobody likes the Dark
Maiden very much these days. "Masculine" qualities, on the other hand,
are very much in demand everywhere.

What are these qualities
everyone seems to dislike so much? I believe they are the psychic and
watery parts of the five-pointed star, and include receptivity, deep
emotions, vulnerability, responsiveness, cooperativeness,
supportiveness, nurturance, caring, giving, sweetness, gentleness,
perceptiveness, empathy, and so on.

For years I have been
exploring the theary that the old masculine/feminine model could easily
be replaced by a new symbol system based on the five pointed star and
the five elements. If both womyn and men could understand themselves as
varying degrees of airy, fiery, watery, earthy and psychic energies,
then it wouldn’t matter so much which gender one is, or what gender
one’s mate might be

Or, we could understand ourselves as
having five genders. My mother always used to joke that all our
problems come from having only two sexes, and she proposed having five
in some of her sillier moods. Looking back, I am amazed that in a way I
have found a viable belief system that was once merely foolish
conjecture. Now in the movement towards gender freedom, we find
recognition of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transexuals, and
heterosexuals… and so we do have five indeed!

Or, we cold
understand ourselves as one gender: s/he. "There is only one gender,
She," a lesbian friend of mine likes to proclaim. After all, we know
now that men have vestigial breasts and wombs, that their Y chromosome
is a broken version of the female X chromosome, that human embryos are
always female first, that parthenogenesis exists (birth without sperm),
that mitochondrial DNA is passed down only through womyn, that the
"feminine" right brain is the older brain, and numerous other facts
that indicate the primacy of the female form.

In this view,
all of our qualities come from the One, with infinite possible
variations on the theme. We are all combinations of fire (energy, will,
power), air (mental, communicative, intelligent), water(emotional,
loving, connecting), earth (physical, sensual, practical), and spirit
(psychic, soulful, telepathic). The Bright and Dark Maidens can be
understood as aspects of the five arms of the star.

I have
mused that women can polarize as Bright and Dark Maidens, as well as
Mothers and Daughters, Priestesses and Crones, and so on. And, with
polarization often comes sexual attraction. Lovers of all genders do
polarize across the arms of the pentacle: airy people love earthy
people, watery people love fiery people, earthy/watery/psychic people
love airy/fiery people, and so on. In this view our two-fold lover
flows can still be understood within the larger five-fold framework,
thus creating an atmosphere of acceptance towards all our variations.

But why, with all the seeming sexual revolutions and awakenings of our
times, is there persistent prejudice? "Masculine" or "butchy" qualities
are exalted and adored. Everyone wants tough, lean, aggressive,
fast-moving, smart, competitive, and a little mean- for themselves, as
well as for their mates. Het men want this in their women nowadays.
("Why can’t a woman be more like a man?" sang Henry Higgins in My Fair
Lady.) Lesbians insist on it for everyone and gay men seem to adore
it… and of course the old boys’ ranks, where such values were born,
still determine the whole.

"Feminine" qualities on the other
hand, have become contemptible. Wimpy, passive-aggressive,
manipulative, and victim are some of the insults hurled. In a
"butch/femme" magazine I once read the protests of a "femme" lesbian,
who said that the butch/femme split is dividing the women’s
spirituality movement. Hah! I thought… I am not alone, it seems.

Why would psychic watery qualities be deemed undesirable? Doesn’t the  world need
these qualities? Has anyone else out there noticed how brutal, violent,
unfriendly and unsafe the world has become? How can we expect to heal
this without introducing some compassion and caring? Not that I am
attempting to reverse the grid and put watery qualities above all
others. I agree that it is good to be strong, fiery, and free. Goddess
knows we womyn have fought long and hard to reclaim these. But when we
discard any essential part of ourselves we lose out. And when we
discard the soft and gentle sisters, we are doing untold damage to our
movement and to our future hopes.

In fact, Dark Maiden energy
is not weak at all. It is the power of pull, of inspiration and
ecstatic states, of suction and the undertow, of gravity, of the pull
of the moon, the wisdom of dreamtime and magic. A woman who swoons and
weeps openly when her lover wants her is a woman of profound power. A
woman who can be vulnerable and care and love is a woman of health and
natural strength. Without such women- and men too- our world will
wither and die.

And why should we limit ourselves? We are
given all five points of the star; we are all different versions of its
expression. Whether a womon wields a needle or a saw, holds her lover
close or builds a building, sings a song or organizes a trek in the
wilderness, nurtures a child or leads a revolution; all her abilities
are good and beautiful and needed.

So my sisters, I propose,
therefore, an uprising; a revolution of mermaids, of the gentle and
sensitive ones, of the "power femmes" as Alice Malloy, owner of Mama
Bear’s bookstore in Oakland, CA once wrote.

We have a
responsibility, after all. Feminists do have a point when they
criticise womyn who acquiesce to domination. Whether we do so by
coercion, unconscious programming, or deliberate purpose; wittingly or
unwittingly we become the underpinnings of the dominator system. What
would happen if the dominators no longer had anyone to dominate?

And, in all fairness, Bright Maidens have complied in a different way,
by taking on the trappings and values of the power-over system and
abandoning the Dark Maiden. I believe that many of us are each other’s
lost lovers, caught and blinded by the patriarch’s program.

So
my Dark Maiden sisters, throw off those chains of oppressive
victimization; they are not yours. Disregard the insults and put-downs;
they are not true. You are beautiful and good and deserve to be honored
and cherished. Don’t give in to the use and abuse of your sweetness,
your supportiveness. Insist you be treated well, or walk away from
anyone who does not do so.

Let us stand together in conviction and
mutual recognition. Own and celebrate who you are. And when in need of
strengthening vision we can think on the old tale of the seal maiden,
the Silkie woman who walked away from her human lover when he was
abusive to her one day, and dove back into the sea.

From Moonspell Library

Then
do a rite to connect your prayerbowl to Mother Eterna, which in turn
will connect you to all of our prayerbowls all over the world wherever
we may be. :0) We then know that we have the added power of psychic
energy from all our sisters…and all the helping spirits and
divinities they consecrated their bowls to… !